To this day diseases causing diarrhoea remain major global health threats. Diarrhoea severely influences the quality of life of patients all over the world and may pose a particular threat to the survival of infants and children as well as the elderly and patients lacking the means to compensate dehydration and a severe loss of minerals.
As such, acute diarrhoea is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. It causes an estimated 5 million deaths in children under 5 years of age. The cost of management of diarrhoea is a major drain on increasingly burdened healthcare budgets.
Diarrhoea can have a number of different causes such as infection—which comprises diarrhoea caused by rotavirus—, inflammation, allergy and nutritional imbalance resulting it the most common types of diarrhoea including for example secretory diarrhoea, osmotic diarrhoea and motility-related diarrhoea. If the diarrhoea can not be treated by causative means for example by eradication of the pathogen, the type of diarrhoea rather than the underlying cause dictates the symptomatic treatment.
In the last few decades, the use of probiotic bacteria has gained considerable attention as a safe and accessible form of treatment for gastrointestinal diseases. Probiotics were successfully used for the management of diarrhoea caused by viral infections for example with rotavirus. Bacteria that have been employed for intervention in cases of diarrhoea of viral origin belong to the genera Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium. The therapeutic capacity of certain probiotic bacteria against rotavirus-induced gastroenteritis has been attributed to their ability to stabilise and reinforce the mucosal barrier, the production of antimicrobial substances and the stimulation of the local antigen-specific and non-specific immune responses. Significant differences have been noted with regard to the effectiveness and mode of action of different strains.
For example, in the early 1990's, Saavedra et al observed that administration of a combination of Bifidobacterium lactis and Streptococcus thermophilus reduced the incidence of diarrhoea and rotavirus shedding in 29 children followed over 18 months in a chronic care ward in a US hospital (Saavedra et al, The Lancet 344, 1046; 1994). However, less clear results have been obtained in other trials using Bifidobacteria (Thibault et al, J Ped Gastro Nutr 39, 147; 2004).
More recently, it was discovered that Bifidobacterium breve CNCM I-3865 (NCC2950) can be used to treat or prevent diarrhoea caused by rotaviral infection (EP 08172263.9).
Other than in rotavirus-induced diarrhoea—where the symptoms are caused by a pathogen—people that suffer from allergic diarrhoea, in particular food allergy, may react to certain foods as if they were laxatives.
Food allergies represent a significant health problem of our society today. They affect all age groups, but in particular children. Around 6 to 8 percent of all children suffer from at least one food allergy. Adults are slightly less affected than children, but still around 4 percent of all adults suffer from food allergies.
Additional to patients with confirmed food allergy there is a large number of people, up to 35%, suffering from hypersensitivity to one or more food allergens (Rona, R. J. et al., 2007, J. Allergy Clin. Immunol. 120: 638-646).
Prolonged allergic diarrhoea may weaken a patient, cause serious dehydration and loss of minerals, such as for example potassium, and may render the supplementation of the body with all necessary nutritional compounds difficult.
Allergic diarrhoea is usually treated today by avoidance of the food allergen and/or symptomatic by rehydration and mineral uptake, which might pose a considerable disturbance of quality of live and cost to the health care system. It would, therefore, be desirable to have available a composition, that allows to prevent the occurrence of allergic diarrhoea and/or treat allergic diarrhoea and which is safe to be administered without side effects, and consequently may be incorporated into food products.
From the foregoing, it may seen that there remains a need for compositions with effective anti-allergic diarrhoea activity and which are suitable for incorporation into products for consumption by infants and young children, for example.
It was consequently the object of the present invention to improve the state of the art and to provide the art with a composition that satisfies these needs.